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Unlike kenny, who patrols a defined patch of ground, Elijah can be found up and down the street, sitting on his electric scooter, usually smoking. He lives in the building next door but often sits under the scaffolding on ours. Not everyone welcomed his presence at first, but it didn't take long to figure out what he was doing, that he was another member of the tribe extroversia, bored in his apartment, looking for fellow humans with whom to mingle.
肯尼只在固定的区域内巡逻，而以利亚则在街道上随处可见，他坐在电动车上，经常抽烟。他住在隔壁，但经常坐在我们家的脚手架下面。一开始并不是所有人都欢迎他的出现，但没过多久，我就明白了他在做什么，他是外向部落的另一员，在自己的公寓里感到无聊，寻找可以交往的同伴。
Elijah's front door is about 50 feet from mine, but in many ways, he lives in a completely different world. He's a survivor: of a difficult childhood, of abandonment, of addiction, of incarceration, of many physical fights, of divorce and of Brugada syndrome, an arrhythmia that could take his life at any point. I'm a survivor of sneaker wedges, elementary-school auction committees and my son's discovery of men's cologne. I don't think I've ever met anyone who is as matter of fact as Elijah is about his mistakes and what they have cost, or so uncomplaining about the tough hand he has been dealt.
以利亚的前门离我家只有50英尺，但在很多方面他生活在一个完全不同的世界。他是一个幸存者：经历过艰难的童年、被遗弃、毒瘾、监禁、多次身体争斗、离婚和布鲁加达综合征，一种随时可能夺走他生命的心律失常病。我是运动鞋坡跟鞋、小学拍卖委员会和我儿子发现男士古龙水的幸存者。我想我从来没见过像以利亚这样对自己的错误和所付出的代价如此坦诚的人，也没见过像他这样对自己受到的惩罚如此无动于衷的人。
Elijah is as unfamiliar with my way of living as I am with his. He told me he never expected to live in a neighborhood with millionaires. "We're not that rich..." I started to say, then stopped. It's hard to explain my life to him, because all my complaints seem like gibberish. So we find other stuff to talk about. Elijah's love for Tom Brady is pure and strong and rivaled only by Gisele's, so I watched the most recent Super Bowl, even the parts between the commercials.
以利亚不熟悉我的生活方式就像我不熟悉他的生活方式一样。他告诉我他从没想过要和百万富翁住在一起。“我们没那么有钱……”我刚想说，又停住了。很难向他解释我的生活，因为我所有的抱怨似乎都是胡言乱语。所以我们就找别的话题聊。以利亚对汤姆·布拉迪的爱是纯洁和强烈的，只有吉赛尔对他的爱能与之匹敌，所以我看了最近的超级碗，甚至还看了广告之间的部分。
Many of the people I have met in the pandemic were familiar faces that I used to rush past in the morning to get to work and hurry by in the evenings to get home. But I also developed an unexpected rapport with this interesting young woman who lived in my house. I already knew her a bit, since I gave birth to her about two decades ago. She had left for college and had to return when the campuses closed. The child who moved out was perpetually indignant about something, usually me. The individual who moved back in was reasonable and charming and, astonishingly, sometimes laughed at my jokes. After a while I realized it was the same person. My parental fear and ambition had just temporarily clouded her from view—and perhaps skewed her perspective of me. She was not, after all, secretly intent on self-destruction, nor was she allergic to cleaning fluids, study or (microdoses of) advice. Occasionally, astonishingly, I laughed at her jokes too.
我在疫情中遇到的许多人都是我熟悉的面孔，早上上班时匆匆见过，晚上回家时又匆匆见过。但我也和住在我家里的这个有趣的年轻女人建立了一种意想不到的融洽关系。自从20年前生下她以来我已经有一点了解她了。她去上大学了，学校停课后她又回来了。那个搬出去的孩子总会对一些事情生气，大多数情况下都是对我。那个搬回来住的人很理性，很有魅力，并且令人惊讶的是，有时我的笑话会让他大笑。过一会儿之后我意识到那是同一个人。我作为父母的恐惧和野心暂时遮蔽了她的视线——也许还扭曲了她对我的看法。毕竟，她并不是想要秘密地自我毁灭，也不是对清洗液、学习或(微量)的建议过敏。令人惊讶的是，偶尔我也会被她的笑话逗乐。
That's the weird thing about the people you meet during a pandemic. They've been there the whole time.
这就是我在新冠期间遇到的一些人的奇怪之处，他们一直就在那里。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
